And he had unfurled his wings and flown away, feeling Septern’s eyes in his back and fighting himself not to probe the human’s mind. He was a great human, of that there was no doubt. He understood the magic of dimensional travel, he could control it and that made him an incredible prize for the Kaan. He had looked back once, curling his neck under him as he flew onwards. The Vestare were there. They would see him safe.
Sha-Kaan had bellowed his pleasure and flown for the Broodlands.
Chapter 9
Kard, Kerela and Barras stood silent in the ankle-deep mist of dawn behind the shifting evil of the DemonShroud, through which faceless pale-blue phantoms shot and curled. Dormant during Balaia’s hours of darkness, the shapes added a new level of deep unease to the feeling of dread the Shroud evoked. Lookouts above the North Gate had reported Senedai walking alone towards the College walls, through streets where, so recently, the peaceful business of Julatsa had been conducted. Now, those streets belonged to the Wesmen and their Lord was about to deliver judgement on the Julatsan Council’s decision.
At a signal from Kerela, the gates were opened and Julatsa’s military and mage elders stood across the Shroud from Senedai. This time, there were no flags, no archers and no guards. The meeting was likely to be brief.
‘I see your friends keep you company this pleasant morning,’ said Senedai, his smile sneering from beneath his moustache, the tone of his voice falling dead against the Shroud.
‘I see little pleasant in our situation,’ said Barras shortly. ‘General Kard and High Mage Kerela are with me to hear your response to our decision.’
‘Good. So tell me the result of your discussions.’
‘We will never surrender our College,’ said Kerela flatly.
Senedai nodded and there was a trace of regret on his face.
‘I expected nothing more. I respect your decision but it leaves me no choice but to force you from behind your evil mist by means other than negotiation.’
‘That’s what you called yesterday’s ultimatum, was it?’ Barras growled.
Senedai ignored him. ‘As you can see, I have come unarmed and unaided because I want you to believe my words. If, after I have spoken, you choose to strike me down with one of your spells, then so be it. But what I am about to tell you will merely be quickened as a result.’
‘Here it comes,’ muttered Kard.
‘Tell us about the state of any prisoners you hold,’ demanded Barras.
‘Alive,’ replied Senedai. ‘But they are prisoners. They have no standing.’ He paused. ‘There are no mages amongst them. Not now anyway. I couldn’t trust them not to cast the moment my back was turned.’
‘That’s a bluff,’ said Kard, speaking low, his face away from Senedai. ‘There’s no way he could tell the difference in a crowd. He’d have to see them cast.’
Senedai clapped his hands, the sound echoing dully across the small cobbled courtyard in front of the gates in the quiet of the early morning.
‘No more talk. Here is what will happen until you agree to surrender. At dawn, midday and dusk each day, fifty prisoners will be brought to these walls and made to walk into this barrier you created. Any attempt to stop us will result in a further three hundred prisoners being executed and their bodies brought to you for burial. Unfortunately, since we cannot pass these bodies, or those who walk the barrier, to you, they will have to be left to fester and rot in full sight of anyone who cares to look down from your walls.
‘Furthermore, as each day dawns, the number of prisoners walking into your mist each time shall rise by fifty. You can stop this repatriation—’ he smiled at his choice of words ‘—simply by hanging your flag of truce or surrender from this gate and then removing the barrier. The first fifty prisoners will be here at dawn tomorrow. I give you one more day to make the right choice. Don’t make me prove my words.’ He spun on his heel and strode away.
Barras and Kerela looked at Kard.
‘He’ll do it,’ said the General, nodding gravely. ‘Have no doubt. In fact I’m surprised he gave us another day.’
‘Damn the man,’ said Barras.
‘But you can’t fault his thinking, can you?’ said Kerela. ‘This is very public. And our people will see their own killed by something we created.’
‘But his is the force, Kerela,’ protested Barras. ‘We’re the innocents. ’
‘Yes indeed,’ said Kerela quietly. ‘But it is within our power to halt the murder and in a very short time I can see our people turning against us. We must be prepared for that.’
‘You’re not suggesting surrender?’ said Barras.
‘No. But remember, most of us within these walls are not mages. They do not have the same desire to preserve the College because they have no conception of what it would mean to lose it.’ Kerela chewed her lip and began walking back to the Tower. ‘We must work out what to say to our guests.’
Sha-Kaan stretched his jaws in the quiet of Wingspread, feeling through slight vibration in the walls and floor the scurrying feet of his attendant. There was much to tell him and a journey would have to be made. So much of what was to come to Keol and then to Teras was similar to the arrival of Septern all those long rotations before. But there was a key difference.
Septern had been able to produce the help they needed through his intimate understanding of the nature of the dimensions. Sha-Kaan had no such confidence in the abilities of Hirad Coldheart and his Raven.
And yet he wondered whether it wasn’t all simply a fate over which none of them had any control. Skies knew it felt that way. But who could have foreseen the other chain of events that Septern’s arrival at the Broodlands had set in motion?
Sha-Kaan closed his eyes once more, breathing in the damp of the earth beneath his great body and recalled the Ancients’ meeting with Septern. He had arrived irritable but well and Sha-Kaan well remembered the look of awe on his face as he took in the Broodlands. There was no Wingspread then, of course, but the structures of the Ancients sprang from the ground, testimonies to their leadership of the Kaan.
The Ancients had chosen to meet Septern on the banks of the River Tere, allowing those with the need to rest in its calming flow. In addition to Sha-Kaan, invited as the one who found Septern, three Ancients met the human. Ara-, Dun- and Los-Kaan. All had been in the last flights of their long lives, scales fading from gold to a dull brown, wings drying making flying a painful and difficult process.
Septern had walked into the middle of them, craning his neck to see their faces, his eyes trailing over their massive bodies, down to the tails which twitched impatiently. Ara-Kaan had opened his mouth to speak but Septern had spoken first, chilling the proud thought in Sha-Kaan’s mind. Ara had been an ill-tempered dragon at best and the current Great Kaan felt the shudder of ages through him as he remembered what followed . . .
‘—I’m not happy about this,’ said Septern. ‘I arrive in good faith, after winning the trust of the Avians to let me build a rip in their land and they are rewarded by wanton destruction by your . . . your minions or whatever you call them. It was their fatal misfortune that my incomplete knowledge of the workings of dimensional magics in their land led to it being far larger than I had intended. Then, as if that’s not—’
‘Silence!’ thundered Ara-Kaan. ‘Skies fall but you humans do not know when to hold your feeble tongues.’ The sound of Ara’s voice cracked across the valley, once again dumping Septern from his feet. He looked straight into Ara’s eyes, defiant.